Parenting Bytes

If you have a child, chances are you’ve heard about the Momo Challenge. A creepy image has been flying around the internet accompanying stories of videos that have been hacked by “Momo” with instructions on how kids should kill themselves in order to keep Momo from killing their entire family. Lovely. So let’s get something out of the way right now: it’s a hoax. The image, which is creepy, is actually from a Japanese sculpture, and had nothing at all to do with the internet, kids, or suicide. But the image became part of an urban legend and spread like wildfire. And along with the Momo Challenge legend came stories of hacked YouTube videos and links to actual suicides. The problem for parents seemed to be a mix of confusion about what was real and a lack of knowledge about how YouTube works, what its relationship is to YouTube Kids (which had its own suicide video scandal), and what parents can do to keep their kids safe while watching videos online. Fake stories were shared tens of thousands of times in Face